Question Why are there so many atheists in philosophy? Is this evidence that religion does not stand up to philosophical scrutiny?

Accepted:
June 24, 2010

Comments

There are many atheists, but there are also many theists and agnostics. Here is an off the top of my head list of theists working in philosophy today who have made excellent contributions to philosophy: R.M. Adams, Marilyn Adams, Avlin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, Lynda Zagzepski, Eleonore Stump. Lynne Adams, John Cottingham, Timothy Chappell, T. Mawson, Chad Meister, John Lucas, Brian Leftow, John Haldane, Scott MacDonald, M. Peterson, W. Hasker, Steve Evans, Brian Davies, William Wainwright, W. Craig, S.T. Davis, Victoria Harrison, Stewart Goetz, Paul Griffiths, Paul Helm, C. Hughes, Robert Audi, Michael Rea, Thomas Flint, Sarah Coakley, R. Crell, W. Abraham, Jerome Gellman, Laura Garcia, Patty Sayre, John Hare, J. Kvanvid, G. Mavrodes, Jeff Jordan, Robert Roberts, Keith Yandell..... This is a purely random list.

There are also well known atheists and agnostics, but the field is not without prominent alternatives. For a good overview, I recommend the second edition of the Blackwell Companion to Philosophy of Religion I co-edited with Paul Draper; we insured that there is a fair and balanced representation of theists, atheists, agnostics (Draper is currently an agnostic), as well as those who embrace alternative concepts of the divine (pantheism, daoism...)

Charles Taliaferro is, of course, right that there are philosophers who are serious theists. But noting that doesn't really answer the question why more aren't. (My guess about the proportion of serious theists in UK philosophy departments is no more than one in eight, probably less.)

But I rather doubt that this is because "religion does not stand up to philosophical scrutiny": my non-believing colleagues mostly show no interest at all in the philosophy of religion. The reasons why they find no sustenance in theistic religion and it wouldn't cross their mind to attend church are more complex than explicit argumentative considerations. And so too for other non-believers. For at least in the UK, among the educated middle classes (as opposed e.g. to among immigrant communities maintaining a cultural identity), religion is in quite general and continuing decline, and the lack of belief among philosophers is matched much more generally. And not, surely, just because of how the arguments fall. For as Wittgensteinian writers about religion rightly emphasize, belief is not (or at least not primarily) a matter of arguments for or against, but of how one is engaged or disengaged from certain 'forms of life'. And forms of life can wither for cultural reasons quite other that explicit philosophical scrutiny. (No one, I take it, thinks that the seemingly very different trajectories of religious belief among the educated middle classes on different sides of the Atlantic has anything to do with different assessments of philosophical arguments one way or the other!)

Charles Taliaferro has a good point, but I feel the need to add that many intelligent religious thinkers who might be 'philosophically oriented' end up going to seminary or studying formal religion instead of going into philosophy. So, there are many attractive options open to an 'abstract thinking' religious person who wants to pursue in-depth metaphysical studies that atheists don't have. After all, if you are satisfied with relatively conventional religious answers there's no need to go into philosophy. I wouldn't read any more into the pattern than that. Finally, I'd note that the number of theists in philosophy is increasing rather than decreasing as Charles and I recently commented upon at length in another question.

Thank you to replies by Peter and Eric. I do agree with Eric and take note that more and more theists are in play, certainly more than when I started grad school in 1975. In typing in the names of current well known theists, I mangled a few names:

Lynne Adams should be Lynne Baker. She is a PERFECT example of a philosopher who does highly respectable work in secular topics in metapysics and also does amazingly good work as a theist in philosophy of relgion.

R. Crel should be: Richard Creel

and J. Kvanvid should be Jonathan Kvanvig

Other prominant theists (again this is pretty random, but here are some more who work in the English-speaking world and have great reputations in other areas) include: Michael Dummet, Peter Forrest, D. Howard-Snyder, H. Meynell, J. O'Leary Hawthorne, Peter van Inwagen, S. Wykstra, Timothy O'Connor, Ed Wieringa, William Mann, Nelson Pike, R.C. Koons, A. Pruss, Bruce Reichenbach........all these and the others mentioned (as well as some philosophers who died over the past four years who did outstanding work as theists: John Foster, William Alston, Philip Quinn) and this list is a beginning.

The presence and activity of such atheistic literature is actually a sign of vitality for both theism and atheism. One does not argue against positions that one regards as having no merit whatever. In the book, The Last Word, Thomas Nagel (who is a brilliant philosopher; I would say the best living philosopher) writes that he hopes there is no God. Nagel, an atheist, is interesting here because one does not hope for X unless you think it is possible that not-X (in this case Nagel would be hoping that it is true there is no X / God. I don't hope 2+2=4, for example.

And the number of atheists and agnostics is impressive as well: W. Rowe, Paul Draper, Richard Gale (though he and Pruss have defended a cosmological argument for God's existence so I am not so sure....Gale might be like Rowe, a philosopher who thinks the cosmological argument is good, but not decisive and then he opts for what he calls "friendly atheism"), Q. Smith, M. Tooley, J.L. Schellenberg, Michael Martin, D. Conway....

Actually, a very interesting case of where contemporary atheism is today can be found in the 2010 publication of the book by Thomas Nagel Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament (Oxford) in which he laments that secular naturalism has been unsuccesful in defeating theism (he argues against Dawkins and Rundle) and in addressing what he sees as the mission of philosophy in providing a comprehensive and liberating understanding of our relationship to the cosmos. I urge anyone reading this to check out Nagel's seminal paper (same as the title of the collection). You can find a copy online.

I think Eric's point is brilliant about how it is that some philosophically oriented persons who might go into philosophy, choose theology. (Actually, after doing a master's in philosophy I did a masters in theological studies as I wanted to learn Greek and study theology before moving on to the Ph.D. in philosophy). On Peter's point about the UK being so secular, he is better placed than I to assess that (I have lived in the UK maybe only four years, total from time to time, e.g. 18 months at Oxford, 3 months in London etc over 35 years), though in two recent books John Hick disputes that, noting that if a sociologist asks the question aright, Britain seems at least quite spritual. Be that as it may, I don't think I have come across a single introductory text book that did not include philosophy of religion. I would even wager (genteman's bet, though I would buy someone a pint if they prove me wrong --only one winner, though) that the majority of introductions to philosophy in English from 1970 to the present put philosophy of religion first. Now this is partly to shoot down so-called "proofs" for God's existence, but it is nonetheless a sign that one of the ways educators have thought to naturally engage students in the philosophical enterprise is to engage students with questioning the beliefs of living traditions. Actually, Askphilosophers is quite interesting as I think that the category 'Religion' is one of the top areas that people have been asking questions about. That would not happen if we were all secular now and had little interest in religious traditions.

For a further look at philosophy of religion today, I highly recommend the entry, Philosophy of Religion, in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. There are also multiple entries there online on divine attributes, theistic and atheistic arguements and the like.

Question Why are there so many atheists in philosophy? Is this evidence that religion does not stand up to philosophical scrutiny? Accepted:June 24, 2010

Question Why are there so many atheists in philosophy? Is this evidence that religion does not stand up to philosophical scrutiny?

Accepted:
June 24, 2010